Light management systems have been implemented that attempt to balance the admission of natural daylight and the application of artificial lighting in interior environments. The light management systems are intended to offer the benefit of energy savings via utilization of natural daylight under certain conditions, while maintaining a comfortable lighting environment for occupants of the interior environments.
Some light management systems provide automatic control of blinds or other light blocking elements in the building to selectively omit and/or allow varying degrees of natural daylight to enter the interior environment.
Some light management systems further provide automatic control of artificial lights in the building to selectively provide artificial lighting to the interior environment. For example, artificial lighting may be provided when natural daylight alone is insufficient to provide desired lighting in the interior environment (e.g., when it is dark outside).
The automatic operation mode of the light management systems may be complemented by a manual operation mode in which a user can override the automatic operation and manually adjust the lights and/or the blinds. For example, users may switch the light management system to a manual mode and dim the lights and/or adjust the height of the blinds and/or the angle of slats of the blinds directly while in the manual mode. Also, for example, user control actions in the automatic mode may override the automatic mode and switch the system temporarily into the manual mode. After a timeout period, the system may then automatically switch back into the automatic mode. This temporal switching into the manual mode by a user does not have any effect on the system operation in the automatic mode. Manual modes may enable user change to the light management system but do not offer benefits of automatic modes, e.g. convenience. Also, the automatic mode of the light management systems exhibit a rigid behavior based on a fixed desired lighting set-point pre-programmed at the factory and/or set at installation. Such fixed set-point may not provide desired luminance to certain users and/or in certain situations.
Thus, there is a need in the art to provide methods and apparatus for a light management system that may provide automatic operation tailored to user interactions with the light management system.